UN agrees sanctioned N. Korea official to attend Olympics
UNITE D NATIONS, United States: The UN Security Council gave permission for a North Korean official under international sanctions to travel to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics along with Kim Jong Un’s sister, diplomats said.
South Korea presented on Wednesday a request to the council’s sanctions committee for an exemption to the travel ban imposed on Choe Hwi, chairman of North Korea’s National Sports Guidance Committee.
North Korea agreed in January to send a delegation to the Olympics and to hold talks with South Korea, easing tensions that have soared over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests.
Choe was sanctioned in June last year as a senior director of the propaganda and agitation department of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party.
The committee granted the exemption to Choe after no council member raised objections to the request, a council diplomat said.
North Korea is under multiple sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, which have seen it develop rockets theoretically capable of reaching the US mainland.
The exemption will also be extended to all members of the delegation, meaning that a ban on luxury goods to North Korea will be temporarily lifted – a measure that would allow for gifts, for instance.
UN diplomats said the approval was expected as council members support the sports d tente between North and South Korea.
In a letter to the committee, South Korea said the visit “will serve as a timely opportunity to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula and beyond by promoting an environment conducive to a peaceful, diplomatic, and political solution concerning the situation on the peninsula”.